Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Cultures
A program of The Nature of Cities, FRIEC is a platform for nurturing humanity’s sacred cultural relationships with urban nature. We produce place-based storytelling (essays, poetry, books, and films), and events (exhibitions, residencies, and transdiciplinary events) that inspire direct ecological actions in local landscapes.
“Threats to wetlands include unsustainable urban development, pollution from cities, industry, agriculture, and invasive species, to name a few. But the biggest threat is one of perception.” The Ramsar Convention (also known as Convention on Wetlands) is the first of the major intergovernmental convention on biodiversity conservation and wise use. It was signed in 1971, […]
“The Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland was created by visionary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead whose designs “staged nature”. Our miniature tent in this setting considers the compromise between anthropogenic interests and non-human nature.” It is late June and we are up to our knees floating a small tent sculpture in a containment pond filled […]
“Call and response as a means of dialogue: Physical interventions call out some aspect of the natural systems and infrastructure and, through community engagement activities, the people of Milwaukee respond to and activate the sites.” As an artist, having the opportunity to develop a project at the scale of a city has been a remarkable […]
A review of “Clyde Reflections,” an art film by Stephen Hurrel and Ruth Brennan, on exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, Scotland. The west coast of Scotland has been known to enchant, with its rough coastal edges, intricately carved islands, charming towns, and an aquatic landscape that is as often tranquil as […]